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Loss and Reason

There are few times that I chortle over losing ships with pleasure. Yet, I've lost three in the last two days and all of them have been worth it. It is not that I enjoy losing ships to lose ships. I have never, ever agreed with that mentality. I, however, have no problem with losing ships as part of the greater goal. That brief flare of light as my ship is snuffed out

First, let me comment that they are all frigates. As a frigate pilot I love making it out of scraps. The ships on fire, structure is flaring red and an insane giggle follows the shakes. At the same time, as a frigate pilot in a fleet sometimes that means sacrificing. Part of my job is knowing when. There are times that my duty as the frigate pilot is greater than a kill and my orders are to stay alive at the loss of a kill. There are other times that I am the most dispensable ship in the fleet and those few moments of life before death can tip a fight in any way.

Sometimes it is just a gamble. I lost a Stiletto to tackling an Iteron V on a low sec gate at the start of a roam last night. I held long enough for a secondary point to land as I aligned out and was vaporized by the gate guns. That loss will not show no a kill board but it is still real and valid. The Iteron was empty. But, that is not something we know until it is dead. I've heard people ask why don't we ship scan and not kill the empty ones. Time. That Iteron is not going to hang around for me to scan him and decide after all.

Earlier yesterday we had a rampaging fight where we dove, piece meal and kitchen sink into a composed fleet with plenty of logistics support. Taking a fight with no logistics against a fleet with logistics is iffy. It tends not to go as smoothly as we might want it to go. It was pretty vicious. We were taking loses and reshipping as their reps stabalzed and destablized. I was in a Jaguar harassing people, locking ships down, distracting their jamming Tengu and providing warpins for support ships. Eventually, they had time to lock me down and I was vaporized.

I reshipped for DPS. In the end, most of us did. Fighting through reps is hard. Gateguns are chewing at us. Their fleet is chewing at us. Fighting in low sec involves these thins. I so often hear people say that gateguns are not a deterrent. They are not a deterrent in the way that CONCORD is not a deterrent. We lose more because of them. We have to incorporate them into our fighting styles. I know, every time I engage in a frigate under them, that my chances are a mix of luck and skill. I get out more times than I do not.

This time we held the field. It was ugly. Enough times for several of us to reship. http://seventwo.killmail.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=19476765 It was also good. A good fight. A long fight. Losses on both sides. Everyone walked away bleeding and damaged and that is fun. It is incredibly fun. It is why I like this type of fighting.

Warping faster than the fleet has a lot of advantages. This is one of the first times that it meant I could bait an entire fleet. The fleet was sitting on the high sec gate in Oddelulf. It was Surely You're Joking, a wormhole corp. I assume from the two guardians that they were out on a roam or gate camping to pass the time or bait a fight.

We had eyes on them when they attacked a THC2 Rupture or at least it seems that they did. Our fleet was assembled and jumped in. The Rupture got away and I landed on grid, about twenty off of the Raven. I pointed him and called my point as I started to do my thing. With the Raven locked down the rest of the fleet was on the way. The Prophecy and Harbinger started to shoot at me. I wasn't pointed but I was going into low shields. After all, assault frigates are baller but they do have their limits.

Decision making time came in. My fleet was landing. Secondary points had not been called and I made the decision to stay as I hit half armor and was pointed. But, they were all aggressed on me and their Guardians had picked up their aggression. Between gateguns, drone damage, and turrets I wasn't going to walk away in that Jaguar. My goal was to hold down what I had and keep everyone focused on killing me for as long as I could. With everyone rolling in points started to land as I popped and warped and went to reship. The Guardians's got jammed and suddenly pirates errywhere.

The entire fleet went down. With 7-2 and THC2 and Ueber on field it went sideways and upside down quickly for them. http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=19483304 Bait Jag best Jag. I love the coordination. The responses. We couldn't get people into fleet so they hoped on coms and integrated anyway. That is one of the things I love about how we fight. The focus and ability of the various pilots matters. People are not flapping their arms crying because someone is not holding them each step of the way.

That is the type of thing I aspire to. That my decision making and integration will bring assistance and results to the field and those I fly with. That people want to fly with me because I am a good pilot (as well as loving my fantastic personality). I've never wanted to be allowed to tag along because I was a pet, or people liked me so they were okay with me being around. In PvP, these are some of the reasons I play. It isn't about the kills and the glory. I'd fly a different ship for that. It is about these good fights as much as it is the ganks with friends.

It's my life in low sec.

But, don't think that means I have no problem with a fast gank. Last day of Sleipnir before the rebalance. http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=19481987 Fly strong my sweet and may the tiericide rebalance not cause much suffering my lost guns of the future.

Comments

I have perfect skills for a jag, but hadn't really flow one over one of my more favorable enyo fits because I've always found the DPs to be lacking, and the range not much better when using ACs.

I took your fit out in fleet last night and had some good luck with it. I like the speed and tank, but if I have to sacrifice the DPS, I'd rather have a bit more range with the long point especially. You got any good arty fits for this thing, or do you find the grid to just be too tight?

I'm actually looking at changing to arty after these last few days. Diz made some concepts when we ran the Rawrcat Doctrine. I'm going to go back and look at them.

I don't worry about DPS in my Jag fits so you will find it lacking. When looking at how I fly it know that I never fly it as a solo boat or expecting it to have a DPS position in the fleet. My place in our fleets is tanky fast tackle. My goal is to catch things and pin them down while the rest of the fleet kills them.

With that fit I can hold out against gateguns until secondary points land and chase down logi/falcons/support stuff. It also clears up drones well enough when I have to pluck them off of the logi.

Oh yes, the tank is great. We usually fly with some cruiser logi, but I'm pretty convinced a single bantham could hold that thing up under fairly decent fire. Also, everyone else I was flying with was packing short points, so the long point was key. The issues I ran into were capacitor and lack of range on the guns. 12k falloff with barrage doesn't even get you out of medium neuts. :-)

Due to my genolution implants, I was able to tape a t2 rocket launcher on it and squeeze out a little more DPs, but around 150 was as good as I could get it using hail. I think it was 112 or so with barrage... By comparison, our shield enyos that form the backbone of our AF fleets do about 1k less on the speed, 2k less EHP, but will pump out DPS in the 390's.

I think if I can finagle a good arty fit that'll reach out into the 20-30k range, the jag will be a perfect long pointer.

We used to do a lot of cruiser fleets, but present fotm is assault frigs. Cost is about the same as a well fit cruiser, but the speeds and smaller sigs more than make up for the decrease in ehp we've found.

Given we're fw, it also gives us access to small plexes that we're locked out of with cruisers. Finally, they tend to absolutely murder cruiser fleets in equal numbers as medium guns and missiles can't hit them for shit.

You guys should try a baby hac fleet sometime :).

Let me know if you come up with a good arty fit. I've been playing with it in EFT, but haven't found anything I'm in love with yet.

Molden Heath is the land of larger ships with the 2/10s gone. You are going to find cruiser+. Our normal fleet size is under 10 and most of the time its just whomever with whomever else hanging around.

We like the AF fleets but when you have a Noir. corp who camps their gates in armor BC/BS with Guardian support it tends not to be a fall back "lets undock assault frigates and break up this gatecamp!" type of thing.

As for EFT numbers. I don't worry about them. EFT is numbers. Those numbers won't tell me if I like flying the ship and if it meshes with my flying style. Once I figure out what I am doing I'll update.

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